


Mrs. Polkin

by Iron_Eirlyssa (Eirlyssa)



Series: Eirlyssa's 2019 Bingo Fills [6]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Apartment Hunting Goes Wrong, Bucky Barnes Bingo 2019, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Bucky Barnes-centric, Gen, Humor, Pre-Slash, Pre-WinterIron, cuteness, depending on your point of view, or right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 18:56:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18610501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eirlyssa/pseuds/Iron_Eirlyssa
Summary: After escaping HYDRA, Bucky needs a place to lay low. Looking for an apartment doesn't go entirely according to plan, but, well... He needed a disguise anyway, right?





	Mrs. Polkin

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a talk in the WinterIron Server. I hope this is one good thing to come out of your experiences, [Witchie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SyoshoHiataki) and [Cal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/calmena)! ❤ (And thank you for 'Beatrice's' last name, [Kit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKitteh)! ^_^)
> 
> Fills square K1 - Recovering Bucky for my Bucky Barnes Bingo :)

He’d be an idiot to think HYDRA wasn’t still looking for him, and Bucky was definitely not an idiot. And he knew the last place anyone would be expecting him would be Washington D.C. itself - he’d seen the way Steve was scouring half the world in order to find him, after all.

Considering his options, he estimated that some disguise to make sure his arm wasn’t visible and some prosthetics to change the shape of his face might be enough to keep him hidden. Hell, people still thought they saw Elvis walking around after the guy’d been dead for years, didn’t they? It shouldn’t be too hard.

Except then he started to look for an apartment, referring to himself as William Brown, and it was _way_ harder than he expected. Half the apartments on ‘apartments.com’ weren’t even close to what was advertised, and the other half, well… He’d honestly have expected them to remember to include the information that the apartment was part of a _retirement home_.

It was the third time he walked out of a retirement home that inspiration struck him.

William Brown was relatively unnoticeable in a city as big as Washington D.C., but… Beatrice Polkin was someone that _no one_ would be expecting.

A few stores later, and an hour of working on his make-up to make sure he’d look the part, he returned to the second retirement home he’d visited. Forgetting to advertise themselves as such might not be ideal, but the place itself had been lovely - some assisted living when necessary, but it also allowed for some privacy and he imagined the grounds would be lovely to take a walk around when the weather was nice. Not to mention it seemed relatively defensible.

Mrs. Polkin, according to the story he’d come up with while doing said make-up, was the final descendant of immigrants from Europe and had no more living family. She’d been getting lonely, and was hoping that the retirement home would help her make some friends as well as providing a place to be when she started getting less physically fit. Bucky imagined he could come up with a long-lost relative elsewhere in a few years to excuse a move, but this seemed like a good place to rest and recover for a while without having to worry too much.

The retirement home easily accepted Mrs. Polkin as their new resident, and in the weeks following, Bucky wondered if this had _really_ been the best decision.

His neighbors were very curious, and he ended up spending a lot of time with them. As one of the ‘younger’ residents at a projected age of 68, he was able to help them out quite a bit despite having to be careful not to show his actual strength.

One of the most bothersome problems, as such, was the fact that he’d somehow managed to select the one retirement home that also housed Peggy Carter herself. He still wasn’t quite sure if she knew what was going on or not, but he did occasionally notice her looking at him assessingly. If she did, she hadn’t said a thing. He also tended to avoid her whenever she had visitors - oddly enough, aside from seeing Steve in the distance from time to time, he’d also noticed Stark coming in on different days. He just hoped neither of them would notice him.

Still, he couldn’t bring himself to regret it. For the first time since he’d fallen off that train, he felt like he could have some peace and quiet. No one judged him for occasionally being unable to remember things, and it helped him get his memories back quicker.

Aside from actually being able to think without worrying too much, Bucky was also finding ways to spend his time that weren’t murder and setting up false trails for HYDRA (and Steve, because he wasn’t giving up either) to follow. The other inhabitants of the home regularly spent time together, and Mrs. Polkin was invited right along with them.

Barbara and Doris, the ladies living on either side of him, had taken it upon themselves to teach him how to knit. That project actually wasn’t helped along by the fact that the two of them both used a different kind of knitting. Barbara preferred the Continental method, which meant holding the yarn in the left hand, while Doris insisted that the English method was vastly superior. Shirley, who was Peggy’s neighbor and had about as little tolerance for nonsense as she had, had assured ‘Beatrice’ that either method was _perfectly fine_ , and she was free to tell both Barbara and Doris to mind their own business and use the way she herself preferred.

Joseph, Robert and Patricia often invited Bucky to play bridge or poker with them, and he and Robert were often joking about the developing romance between Joseph and Patricia - the entire home knew about it, but they were being shy about actually speaking up, instead partnering up for just about everything that required a partner (and a few things that didn’t).

One of the things that meant the most to him, though, was the ability to rediscover baking.

Losing their bakery during the Great Depression had deeply saddened his parents, and Bucky hardly even remembered the time where it brought in enough to provide for their entire family. But the first time Nancy asked for his help cutting up the apples for a pie, the smell brought back a lot of memories - good ones.

After that, ‘Beatrice’ started experimenting himself, remembering the old recipes his parents had used and looking for new ones on the internet. Nancy still knew some people at the food drive and occasionally did some cooking for them, and once he started baking too much for the people in the home to reasonably be able to keep up, he often sent some of his creations along with her instead.

It really shouldn’t have surprised him to have Peggy Carter come by at some point, requesting some of the mocha cupcakes if it wasn’t too much of a problem. She explained how her godson really loved mocha, and they were the best ones she’d ever tasted, so she’d love to share them with him.

He didn’t realize, at the time, how much obliging her would change his life.

“Hi, I’m sorry to interrupt, but Aunt Peggy told me you were the one who made those delicious mocha cupcakes, and I just wanted to thank you,” Tony Stark said, bright-eyed and smiling up at him radiantly.

Oh. Oh, shit.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! Feel free to come say hi on my [Tumblr](https://eirlyssa.tumblr.com/).


End file.
